Arcane S02

We finally got around to watch season 2! I had to look up when we watched season 1 and it was all the way back in April 2022! It's been almost 3 years!

Season 2 wasn't as amazing as season 1. It was still really great, but at the same time it felt like it was trying to do too much. There were too many storylines happening all at once and they didn't quite manage to tie it all together before the season was over.

I love Jinx and this season did nothing to make me love her less. It did make me cry over her though.

I spent most of this season being angry with Jayce.

Viktor was the most interesting thing to happen in this entire season.

Game completed: Avowed (twice!)

I was very excited for this game. Partly because it was Obsidian, partly because I really enjoyed The Outer Worlds, partly because it reminded me of Dragon Age, and partly because it looked hella cool!

I've seen so many people saying Avowed is just The Outer Worlds but fantasy, but as I played it I got more Dragon Age vibes than Outer Worlds vibes. Outer Worlds is absurd and humoristic with a dark undertone. Avowed isn't like that. The darkness isn't an undertone, it's prevalent and everywhere, any humor is just to defuse serious situations. Threats of famine and invasion with subsequent subjugation are imminent and very real, on top of that there's a plague decimating the population. 

Playing through Avowed I could definitely see that it had the same devs as Outer Worlds, but Avowed is in no way a carbon copy of Outer Worlds in a new skin. 

So, the story. You're a Godlike from the Aedyran Empire sent to the Living Lands to investigate a plague called the Dreamscourge. You're sent as an Imperial Envoy by the Emperor personally, to see whether this plague he's hearing of will hinder the plans to incorporate the Living Lands into the Empire. The people living in the Living Lands are not fans of the upcoming Imperial annexation and there are a lot of rebels and opposing forces going around. As you follow in the wake of the plague you become entwined with the locals and the politics of the Living Lands, and the Dreamscourge has a deeply personal revelation in store for you too.

For my very first playthrough I got as far as the end of the second zone. The big thing that happens there shocked me so much I had to look up whether it was possible to have it end differently. And it was. That's also when I discovered that I had missed a whole heap of stuff. So I decided to restart the entire thing. 

The next playthrough I played all the way to the end and once I got there I immediately started another playthrough to make different choices and get some achis I didn't get the first time around. I think I prefer how this last playthrough turned out. 

The major choices have major repercussions. As it should be.

For my first complete playthrough I played Wizard class. I spent the majority of my time running around with a wand in one hand and a shield in the other :3 All the wand waving made me think of Hogwarts Legacy tbh. 

For my second playthrough I was a Rogue. The game allows for two weapon load-outs and I had bow in one and sword and shield in the other. There was an achi for parrying with a shield, hence all the shields, also I suck at timing things, do the math. 

I absolutely loved all of the companions. Marius took some getting used to and a lot of work to break through his walls, but my heart ached for him once I discovered why he had those walls at all. Giatta and Yatzli are my girls. I loved running around with an all girl team with those two. 

To nobody's surprise, though, Kai *cough* Garrus *cough* is my favourite. Avowed doesn't have much in the way of romance, and that's fine, but there's one instance where you can tell Kai that you like him and then the end slide shows them together afterwards. Warm, fuzzy feeling :3

I fell to my death misjudging a jump more than I died in combat xD Climbing is dangerous.

After having played through Avowed two and a half times I still didn't feel done with the world. So I went and got Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, both of which take place in the same world as Avowed. 

So we played Raft...

After Evil West we decided to play another survival base builder game and landed on Raft. The first world we started we didn't realize the raft would leave us behind if we jumped off it, so we jumped to the first island we found, ran around, realized the raft was gone and then came to the realization that it wasn't possible to build another raft from scratch. (Why not? You can add as many raft pieces as you want to the existing raft, but somehow you can't tie two raft pieces together to make a new raft). So we were stranded on a tiny little island and had to restart another world. 

We soon realized this game came with a lot of annoyances, the most glaring one was durability and how fast things broke, and when things break you can't repair them, they just vanish completely, disintegrated. The second was how extremely fast hunger and thirst needed to be satisfied. The third was planks. The first few sessions all we did was stand on the raft and fish for materials and food. We stopped at every little island we found to strip it from resources and then continue on our way, floating aimlessly. 

Planks were needed for everything. You want to cook the fish you've caught - planks. You want to build more raft - planks. You want to repair your raft after the goddamn shark's been at it again - planks. You want to make clean water - planks. You want to smelt ores into ingots, or make sand into glass, or seaweed into vine goo (basically glue) - planks. You want to make tools - planks. You want to keep your engines running before you get the blueprint to make biofuel - planks. You want to build anything at all on your raft - planks. So many planks. We'd deforest every single island we went to, fish up every single plank, barrel and crate from the water and yet somehow we were always short on planks. It saved us some planks once we got a metal frame around the entire raft so the shark couldn't attack and got biofuel set up for the engines and a proper electric water tank. Batteries were a major resource drain until we finally got the battery charger and didn't have to make a new battery every time one ran out. The timing discrepancy between needing a battery for the receiver and being able to craft batteries, and actually being able to recharge batteries is too vast (blueprint for battery charger is at Caravan Island, the fourth story location after you've set up the receiver). At which point you likely need batteries not only for the receiver, but also for the recycler, and the juice machine, and the sprinkler. 

Hunger and thirst diminished at such a fast speed that whenever we went to explore a story location we'd make sure we were full on hunger and thirst, brought food and drink with us, and yet were forced to return to the raft to eat and drink at least twice before completing the location. We'd also have to return to just dump stuff in storage because inventory is extremely limited and story locations offer a shitload of loot. Even after we got the backpack and got slightly more inventory space it still became a whole lot of back and forth to the raft to dump into storage and "might as well eat and drink while I'm here".

Eventually we managed to get the receiver and antennas up and running and started going through the story. The radio tower and the Vasagatan yacht were simple enough. Balboa Island was when the annoyances started to tip over into actual problems. Caravan Island was when we realized that the availability of resources was extremely skewed. Tangaroa was pretty nice compared to Caravan and Balboa, although it still had its annoyances. Varuna Point was when we quit the game to never return. 

Balboa Island was when we realized we needed armor due to the bears, but we hadn't yet managed to catch any animals, so we didn't have any wool or leather to make armor from. We could build the net gun and the pens well enough. But we couldn't get any ammo to the net gun because to craft it we needed explosive goo, which we could get from puffer fish, which were so rare we barely ever encountered them and when we did they were liable to just explode into poison clouds rendering them unlootable. It wasn't until after Tangaroa that we finally managed to catch any animals. And only because Caravan Island had puffer fish in abundance. 

Balboa Island was also where we discovered that unlike other survival games we've played together you don't drop your gear in the place you died for you to go and collect once you respawn. No, in this game everything is counted in durability, so when you die everything in your inventory loses durability which means that depending on how much durability the item had when you died you either lose the item entirely or its durability is halved from where it was before you died. We almost quit the game right then and there, because we had to remake pretty much every single tool from scratch. And of course we were low on planks, because when the fuck weren't we.

Caravan Island was so confusing we had to look up a guide on how to get through it and find everything needed to progress. Same deal with Tangaroa and Varuna Point. Varuna Point was a major hassle since it was mostly under water. The guide said diving gear was recommended, but not required. We tried without but that made things go so slowly so we went back to the raft to fix some diving gear. Two sets each due to durability and after that we were basically out of planks, seaweed and vine goo. It was still slow going so we had to return to the raft a few times for food despite finding it in containers and bringing it with us. The boss of Varuna Point is the Rhino Shark and unlike the Mama Bear at Balboa Island, it's unskippable. The strategy is to make the shark swim into the concrete pillars and once the pillars are broken up place explosives in them and make the shark swim into them again, creating a hole to the next level and injuring the shark. This would have to be done on three levels, each level had less pillar. We had to take turns to do this so that one of us could be off to the side to heal and/or eat/drink. We had only just started to be able to catch animals and had yet to find chickens since being able to catch them and so we had no eggs, so we couldn't make any healing salves... So our only healing option was to chill in the water and let the health replenish over time. On the last level of the boss we ran out of food/drink and durability on all our diving gear. We chose to return to the raft to replenish, but when we were set to return to the boss arena we were both attacked by the rhino shark which was now suddenly outside?! Also the regular shark decided to join in. First I died, so bf decided to try to go get me and return me to the raft (because you gotta be on a bed to rez). On the way back to the raft he was attacked by both sharks and he also died. We respawned on the raft with all of our gear either lost or with most of their durability gone. We had no resources to make new equipment because we had used up all our planks to make vine goo to make diving equipment that couldn't even withstand the time the area required. 

Softlocked due to shitty durability and bosses roaming free we dumped this game and moved on. 

Intro to the Lore of the Elder Scrolls Universe

This is probably the nerdiest post I will ever make, and one that has been a long time in the making. At the end of July 2023 I decided to start studying the lore of one of my favourite video game franchises; The Elder Scrolls. It has one of the most expansive, complicated and detailed worlds ever, and it relies heavily on the "unreliable narrator" meaning that every event has at least two perspectives and both are true even when contradicting each other, because both characters are retelling what happened from their individual perspectives. Each account is their truth, even if it might not be the overarching truth or the whole truth. 

Unless you go around reading every single book you find, the general gameplay experience will offer you a very limited view on lore. It's when you start drawing connections between events described in books and described by NPCs and even from Out of Game texts that you start to glimpse how fucking huge this universe is and how much attention to detail has gone into it. And once you start studying the lore you simultaneously find yourself studying philosophy, psychology and comparative religion. 

So how do I even start trying to make the lore make sense for the uninitiated? Let's start with Skyrim, the most recent main game in the franchise. 

The first thing that happens after the initial cutscene is that you get to create your character. You have ten choices for race. Altmer, Argonian, Bosmer, Breton, Dunmer, Imperial, Khajiit, Nord, Orc, and Redguard. 

The Altmer, or High Elves, are a race of elves who view themselves as closest to the original race of elves which all other elvish races sprung from: the Aldmer. Their culture is obsessed with preserving this purity and because of this purity they view themselves as superior to all others. According to legend the Aldmer were descended from the gods and the Altmer view it as their biological right to attempt to re-ascend to godhood. Some of their cultural heroes, like Phynaster and Syrabane, have allegedly done this. Their most revered god is Auriel, the God of Time. They hail from the island province of Summerset.

The Argonians are the lizard people, who are on the outside of the man/elf schism. They hail from the swamps of the southeast, Black Marsh, and they live in a tribal society where they worship the Hist, a sentient race of trees. Every tribe has their own Hist tree and the Argonians consume its sap on their name day to receive their name and connection to their Hist. It's said that the Hist saw the other mortal races and found that those forms were useful so the Hist created its own version of that form: the Argonians. The Hist can influence the Argonians and even change their form or gender. Aside from the Hist they also worship Sithis, the primordial cosmic force of change. They experience life from the aurbic now, meaning the past isn't important and the future is unknown so they live in the present. Argonians see change as good and accepts that nothing ever lasts. 

The Bosmer, or Wood Elves, are a race of elves who live in the deep forests of migrating trees in the southwest, Valenwood. They worship Y'ffre and view existence as a story told by him. To honour him they follow the Green Pact, which says that the forest can't be harmed. So they can't chop down trees or farm or pick vegetables. They eat meat. Even the meat of fallen people as it's against the Green Pact to allow the dead to sink into the ground. Their weapons and armour are made of bone and carapace and sinew. The Green Pact states that if they care for the forest, the forest will provide for them and this gives them the ability to shape the trees to their liking, into dwellings. Unlike the Altmer, they don't view themselves as superior and like the Argonians they also prefer to live in the aurbic now. The Wild Hunt is a ritual the Bosmer can perform in times of great danger which allows them to transform into eldritch monsters that will devour everything in their path. Once transformed, they can't turn back.

Bretons are a mix of man and mer. In ancient times a House of Altmer, the Direnni, arrived on the shores to the northwest, High Rock, and settled there. They eventually encountered human tribes which they took as their concubines. The eventual offspring would result in the Bretons, a race that looks like men but with the magical affinity of elves. Eventually the Bretons revolted against the Direnni and took the region for their own. The region consists of very many small kingdoms and dukedoms and they have a culture centered around knighthood and questing. They follow the Imperial pantheon with Akatosh, the God of Time, as their main deity. 

Dunmer, or Dark Elves, are a race of elves of live in the volcanic ashlands to the east, Morrowind. Originally called Chimer they broke off from the Aldmer in ancient times and travelled across the continent to their new homeland. The reason they broke off was due to religious differences from the Aldmer, the Chimer instead chose to venerate the Three Good Daedra: Azura, Mephala and Boethiah. Quite some time later these three gods would be exchanged for the living gods of the Tribunal: Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec, who were three mortals that ascended to godhood. Due to circumstances of their ascension Azura cursed the entire Chimer people into Dunmer. Their skin turned ash-grey instead of golden and their eyes burned red. Their region is goverend by the Great Houses and each Great House has a part of the region that they call their own. The House in the southermost regions are known for slavery of the Argonians and Khajiit. At the time of Skyrim, they have suffered an immense volcanic eruption that destroyed a big part of their land, and their living gods are dead.

Imperials are the human race from the heartland of the continent, Cyrodiil. They were originally diverse tribes of humans that were enslaved by the Ayleids, a race of elves that once dominated the heartland. In ancient times the slaves rebelled against their elven overlords and drove them out or into extinction, after which the heartland became a human controlled region and has since been the seat of several empires. The Imperials of today are divided between hardy Colovians and noble Nibenese. The Imperial pantheon was invented by Alessia the Slave Queen and was meant to incorporate both the elven aspects they had worshipped as slaves and the Nordic pantheon of their Nord compatriots who had helped them throw off the elves. The result was the eight divines, with Akatosh the Time God as the prime deity. 

Khajiit are the cat people and according to myths created from Aldmeri stock, meaning they were originally elves. They hail from a region to the south called Elsweyr. There are sixteen different types of Khajiit, although we only ever see one specific type in each of the main games. They worship the moons whose phases determine what type of Khajiit will be born, but they also worship Azurah who created the Khajiit in the first place. Khajiit are looked down upon by many of the other races as thieves and druggies, and the Dunmer use them as slaves. 

Nords are the people of Skyrim. They came from Atmora, a frozen continent to the north, and made Skyrim their new home. At first they got along with the elves of the region, the Falmer, but then war broke out with culminated in the genocide of the elves as the Nords took Skyrim for themselves. They have since been involved with every single human empire on Tamriel. 

Orcs may be cursed elves, or they may be part of the goblin-ken, stories diverge. The most prominently accepted account among fans is that the orcs were elves who were transformed into orcs when their god Trinimac turned into Malacath. In the older games orcs weren't accepted as an intelligent race, and they were viewed like little more than goblins by the other races. The ending of Daggerfall changed that. Traditionally they live in strongholds where the chief is the only male who's allowed to father offspring. He has multiple wives and the son who bests him in combat and kills him will one day take over as the chief. The wise woman is usually the chief's mother. They are strong warriors and many serve as mercenaries in the Imperial legions. 

Finally, Redguards are the youngest race on Tamriel. They arrived in the First Era (Skyrim takes place in the Fourth) after their continent of Yokuda, to the West, sank into the ocean after a devastating civil war. Their strongest warriors of history are called Ansei and they were known to have the ability to summon a Shehai, or a spirit sword, which was basically them summoning forth a part of their own souls and fashioning it into the shape of a sword which could then be wielded. This ability was rare even in ancient times, and has been pretty much unheard of since the Second Era. 

This is all very basic and there's a lot more to be said for each race, but this post is already long enough. 

I replayed all of Starfield for Shattered Space DLC

When Shattered Space released I was deep inside Dragon Age The Veilguard, so it wasn't until very late last year that I finally picked up Starfield again. And then played nothing but for over two months. At the point of writing this it's been almost a month since I stopped playing, but I've been distracted from blogging. 

So I wasn't all that happy with my original character which brought me to the decision to simply replay the entire game from the beginning with a new character to eventually play the DLC, rather than do it on my old character. For this playthrough I also added a bunch of mods, and if you know me it's mostly UI changes and added questlines, nothing that changes the game too much. Same deal when I mod Skyrim. 

So I made a new character and started my journey, went through the entire main quest until the point of no return, all side quests, companion quests, mod quests etc, before I jumped into the DLC. Doing this was probably a really great choice because going through Shattered Space as a worshipper of the Great Serpent was eye-opening and there were so many dialogue options related to that single trait which wouldn't have been available if I wasn't devoted to the Great Serpent. And of course I had Andreja with me the whole time I was playing this DLC.

The Oracle starstation was hell. Not because it was bad but because I really really hate the no grav environments. I hate navigating them and I hate dealing with weapon recoil in them during battle. But aside from that what happened at the Oracle starstation was pretty cool and definitely invited more questions and, to me, incentive to find out more. So off we go to the Va'ruun homeworld.

Va'ruun'kai is crazy beautiful, though. With it's pink/purple sky and ebony-like creatures. I was in awe throughout most of time there. That promo picture of a citadel? It's really real. It really looks like that and it's so pretty *w* The new grenades you can make with the remains of the new Vortex enemies are really cool, and generally I enjoyed the new enemies and the reasons for how they came to be. The Promised were nice little mini bosses (or just really tough enemies) scattered throughout the world.

The main quest of the DLC then has you complete a pilgrimage followed by being accepted by each of the Houses. So, so, so many parallells to the Morrowind main quest omg. Once all of that was out of the way most of the main quest would be completed, but it should have given you incentive to explore the area and pick up a bunch of sidequests which give you more on the people and culture of the Va'ruun'kai, which in turn gives you background for how did we get to this point?! There are some real choice and consequence sprinkled in there. You can flood an entire farm as the end result of one quest or choose to save the farm, but then you'll have to stick to the status quo in the place you're at, which uuuuh... probably isn't good in the long run. Which is the lesser evil? Up to you.

The DLC has multiple endings, the impacts of which aren't readily noticeable in true Bethesda fashion. Which ending you get is up to you and the implication of each of them are some pretty great changes for the Va'ruun as a whole. 

Throughout the main story you'll get to interact with the Speaker, and each and every one of those interactions gave me strong Dagoth Ur vibes. There's really so much Morrowind in this DLC. Generally, the Va'ruun is just how they inserted Elder Scrolls into the Starfield universe. They worship the Great Serpent (that's just Satakal) and their society is run by Houses (that's just Resdayn). Not to mention that the name of the Va'ruun Ambassador in New Atlantis is Bal'Mor. Balmora. All Elder Scrolls clues. There's a lot more, but you get the idea. I really wanted to post a Va'ruun prayer or chant to the Great Serpent to pick it apart with Elder Scrolls lore, but I can't find a written version and I don't fancy watching a bunch of Youtube videos in the hopes of finding one so we'll have to make do without it. Why doesn't every game have a UESP?

After I finished the DLC I decided to play enough that I unlocked the last few achievements I was still missing. One of them was to get to level 100. I was around level 85 at the time and figured I could just do mission board things until I got to 100, but that became really repetitive really fast. So I went through the Unity and started all over again in NG+. And then I continued playing way past level 100 while waiting for Avowed to drop. 

Unfortunately, my Steam installation corrupted halfway through this playthrough, when I was mostly done with Va'ruun'kai, and I lost almost all of my screenshots. 

Ghosts S01-03

We stumbled upon this show on Netflix and thought it looked fun. It was so much fun! Netflix only had the first two seasons, but we found the third season on a different streaming platform so all good.

So the show is about a young married couple. The wife inherits an old mansion from a relative and the couple decides to move in there and make it a B&B. Only issue is that the mansion is very haunted, which the couple are blissfully unaware of until the wife has a near-death experience and comes out of it able to see and talk to ghosts. Chaos ensues.

I adore Isaac and Sasappis. 

Squid Game S02

Finally we watched the second season! It wasn't as fantastic as the first season (when is it ever?), but it was still really good and the stakes seem higher even though the game is still mostly the same.

Can't believe Gi-hun really thought all the games would be the same as the last time around. How did it never occur to him that they'd switch it up so he wouldn't have any insights to share? But tbf I didn't see it coming that the boat's captain was part of the game so eeeeehhh...

I really enjoy a lot of the characters this time around and I hope more of them survive and it won't be like last time when Gi-hun walked out the only survivor.

Yet that riot at the end doesn't look promising for everyone's survival. Can't wait for the third season!!

From S01-03

We picked up this show on a whim because the trailer looked interesting and it turned out to be so good.

So the premise is that people seemingly randomly arrive to a town with surroundings that you can't leave. Once you're there you can't get out. If you try to drive out you'll somehow end up in a circle and right back in town where you started. During the night there are monsters that come out to eat you. They look just like smiling friendly people until you get close enough and then they're just monsters with too many teeth who'll disembowel you and eat your insides. Lovely stuff. 

The first season follows a newly arrived family and their issues with accepting that they can't leave all the while figuring out more about the place. The appointed sheriff, Boyd, has been in town for quite a while and is on a similar journey to find out how the place even functions. 

The second season follows in much the same vein and towards the end of it we found it has become pretty repetitive that every new thing they try is met with eventual failure. However, the third season is when shit goes down. Every single episode was a rollercoaster and that season finale... omfg. 

Just as with Resident Alien we found the show on Netflix, but Netflix only had the first two seasons so then we had to go on a quest to see if we could find the third season anywhere. We found it on a separate streaming service, provided by one of the ordinary TV broadcasters. Signed up and paid for a month to finish the show, only to find out that despite paying this streaming service has ad breaks several times through a single episode. It's just like TV ._.

Anyway, great show. Can't wait for season four :3

My Top 20 Most Played Games

1. The Elder Scrolls Online (~2500 hours)

2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (1568 hours)

3. Dragon Age Inquistion (605 hours)

4. Immortal Diaries (353 hours)

5. Starfield (289 hours)

6. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (281 hours)

7. Red Dead Redemption 2 (277 hours)

8. Assassin's Creed Valhalla (258 hours)

9. Merge Mansion (225 hours)
I enjoy idle gaming lol

10. Cyberpunk 2077 (220 hours)

11. Fallout 4 (207 hours)

12. Total War: Medieval II (201 hours)
The listed hours are actually mainly the Elder Scrolls overhaul mod... ^^; I played this extensively outside of Steam back in 2007/08 though!

13. Dragon Age Origins (200 hours)

14. Assassin's Creed Odyssey (192 hours)

15. Fallout 76 (176 hours)

16. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (175 hours)

17. Hogwarts Legacy (155 hours)

18. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (154 hours)

19. Mass Effect: Andromeda (139 hours)

20. Dragon Age 2 (128 hours)

I fractured my hand and watched shows for three weeks

On December 2nd I stumbled on the cobblestone streets, fell and landed on my hand, on my way home from work. It hurt but everything still worked so I shrugged it off, went home and went to sleep. Waking up in the afternoon it still hurt, but I could use it somewhat normally. Around noon on December 3rd I discovered that my entire hand was turning blue so I got on the bus to the hospital. 

At the hospital I find out there's a small fracture in one of the bones in the hand so I get my hand, fingers and all the way up to my elbow put into a cast. And I'm put on sick leave until January 6th. I've lost the use of my right arm and hand, unable to play games I spent the following three weeks watching TV shows.

• I caught up on Grey's Anatomy, 1 season.
• I caught up on Bridgerton, 2 seasons.
• I caught up on The Crown, 2 seasons.
• I watched all available seasons of C.B. Strike, 3 seasons
• I caught up on Call the Midwife, 3 seasons
• I watched six seasons of Supernatural

When the cast came off on December 23rd I was so fucking tired of watching TV, yet I continued a bit after the cast had come off because my hand got easily tired and achy at the beginning and I had these rehab exercises I had to do to rebuild muscles.

It was my first time breaking a bone and wearing a cast. Gj, me!

Movies I watched in 2024

1. The Nun II (2023). This movie marked the point where we had completely caught up with the Conjuring universe. I actually liked this one better than the original Nun movie but they're both really good. Honestly the entire Conjuring universe is so good. 

2. Barbie (2023). Finally got to watch this movie! It was just as good as people said and just as corny as I expected. I really enjoyed it, although bf was less impressed. The whole speech about society's expectations on women was on point. 

3. Minority Report (2002). Movie I caught on TV while visiting my parents. I had never seen it before despite it being quite old by now. Not a fan of Tom Cruise but the premise of the movie was really cool. Not sure about that ending though.

4. The Tank (2023). Kiwi creature horror movie. Some couple buys an old house, which has an old water tank underneath it. Something lives in the tank, which they discover is the reason the house has been abandoned for decades. Something horrible happened there and the locals stay away. It was not great, but entertaining enough. The most annoying thing about it was that every time a flashlight was used the actors would shine it right into the camera so we'd get blinded every few minutes.

5. Zom 100: Bucketlist of the Dead (2023). Japanese post-apoc comedy based on an anime. The trailer looked fun so we decided to watch it and it was a wild ride from start to finish. Especially the zombie shark xD

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994). This is a classic I've seen many times before, but I caught it on TV when visiting my parents and it's always a treat to watch. 

7. Deepwater Horizon (2016). Catastrophe movie based on true events that I also caught on TV at my parents'. As far as catastrophe movies go it was pretty alright. 

8. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). I discovered that my bf had never watched Indiana Jones so of course I had to show them to him. The original is still the best one. 

9. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Same as above. This one is probably my least favourite, although I haven't seen the most recent one. We were both equally exasperated by the girl. 

10. Goonies (1985). When I discovered that bf had never seen Indiana Jones, he discovered I had never seen Goonies. So of course he had to show me it. This was great :D Kids adventure movies are always great if they can avoid being too camp and corny. 

11. The Meg (2018). A movie I had been curious about seeing for years, but never got around to. So now we finally did. A modern buffed up version of Jaws. 

12. Meg 2: The Trench (2023). After we had seen the first one we had to see the sequel. Even more buffed up Jaws. 

13. Evil Dead Rise (2023). Somehow I've never watched an Evil Dead movie before. I've seen clips, but never a full movie. Why do they have to be so gross? Like whyd o they have to vomit their guts out when they die? Other than that I had a really good time with this one. 

14. Karusell (2023). A Swedish horror movie which takes place on the amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg. It was a classic slasher movie and pretty well made, with all the hints that a sequel could be possible. 

15. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023). This was on my radar throughout 2023 and then somehow I forgot about it, until a Discord server I'm in started talking about it and I remembered I wanted to watch it. In the Dracula novel this story is told via newspaper clippings. It's basically the story of how Dracula travelled to London via ship and how that ship came to be shipwrecked during a storm. When it was discovered the morning after the storm the ship's crew was all found to be long dead and the captain had tied himself to the wheel. A monstrous version of Dracula and it really tickled my fancy.

16. The Deliverance (2024). Random horror movie we found on Netflix. I was hoping for a good haunted house movie, but this wasn't it. 

17. Orion and the Dark (2024). An animated movie that was really very heartwarming and such a cosy watch. 

18. Damsel (2024). Dragons. Fantasy. Strong female lead. Action adventure movie with all of the mentioned qualities. It was a lot of fun to watch and I had a good time. 

19. Apostle (2018). Cult horror movie. Could have been good, but fell a bit short.

20. Office Invasion (2022). This movie was just crazy hilarious fun. 

21. The Bone Collector (1999). Another movie I caught on TV at my parents'. Retired detective who was rendered paraplegic at work is called in to help investigate a case. Really interesting thriller. 

22. How It Ends (2018). The name's gotta be ironic, because it doesn't. It's a catastrophe movie, but all of the cool things shown in the trailer happens in the last 15 minutes. The movie doesn't have a satisfying ending and just leaves a whole heap of loose threads. 

23. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014). Norwegian zombie movie. Several years ago we watched the first one and it was hilarious so when we discovered the sequel on one of our streaming services we had to watch it. This wasn't as good, but still it was so much fun. 

24. Konferensen (2023). Swedish horror movie based on a book I had previously read. So I knew who the killer was and what would happen. Yet it was still a very good movie and they kept a lot of the gory details intact (although some of it was changed). 

25. That Christmas (2024). Very heartwarming and cosy animated movie. All the feels.

26. The Christmas Chronicles (2018). This movie was so much fun. There was a lot of laughter to be had and just generally really good vibes. 

27. The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020). The sequel wasn't as good as the original, but still there was a lot of good vibes and cosiness. 

28. The Holiday (2006). One of my favourite Christmas movies and one of few romantic movies I can stand. 

29. Home Alone (1990). Classic. A must-watch every Christmas season. 

30. Klaus (2019). An animated movie, but surprisingly serious. I really enjoyed this one. It's a tale about the origins of Santa Claus. 

31. Forrest Gump (1994). Another classic caught on TV at my parents' (I visited a lot last year). 

My last 5 books: Blood and magic

1. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia A. McKillip. I have never ever heard of this book, yet it's marketed as a classic. It read like an old tale, sort of stilted and very proper language. The characters felt unfinished to me like their motivations and personalities weren't properly executed. They were more like embodiments of tropes or storytelling stereotypes rather than people, and I didn't actually care for any of them. The ending seemed like a fairytale ending; after the climax of the story and all that fighting and the conflicts people were just happy together again. This book didn't make me feel anything.

2. The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan. This second Percy Jackson book was really cool and promises even more cool things to come! I like how he made use of the mythology surrounding the Bermuda Triangle in this book, as well as introducing Cyclopses and Hippocampi. If they weren't just kids I'd totally ship Percy with Annabeth. Tyson is really, really sweet and I liked how Percy finally accepted him and took him fully under his wing rather than treating him like some useful but annoying appendix. And omg I want to punch Clarisse. She's so stupid she makes me inwardly groan. I'm excited for the next one!

3. Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch. The fourth Rivers of London book and I feel like barely anything at all happened until the last few pages. Most of the book was speculation and surveillance without much coming from it until the very last minute and then we get a revelation of a traitor, with the traitor having had a huge signpost above their head since around the middle of the book. There was no surprise involved in the revelation. Part of me wants to drop this series, but another part of me clings to it because I find it funny with the modern references to well-known fantasy and sci-fi books, although there's getting to be less of that with each installment. 

4. Konferensen, av Mats Strandberg. Det är alldeles för länge sen jag läste nånting på svenska. Jag gillade Färjan skarpt, men Hemmet var en besvikelse, så jag började läsa Konferensen med blandade förväntningar. Den visade sig dock bli en bok som jag hade svårt att lägga ifrån mig och läste ut på två dagar. Under flera scener i boken satt jag och halvblundade mot alla blodiga beskrivningar som om jag såg på en skräckfilm. Under scenerna där Jonas blir halvt skalperad och senare får skalpen helt avsliten fick jag tvinga mig att inte gny högt. Alla karaktärerna gjorde mig smått förbannad samtidigt som de var otroligt igenkänningsbara och så fruktansvärt svenska. För tio år sen hade jag inte känt igen mig lika mycket men nu satt jag där och kände att jag personligen hade träffat variationer av alla dessa karaktärer på riktigt i arbetssammanhang genom åren. Denna bok blev helt klart en av höjdpunkterna det här året.

5. The Uninvited, by Dorothy Macardle. After having had a bit of success with gothic ghost stories I was looking forward to reading another one. I had previously watched the old black and white movie based on this book and enjoyed it so I was hoping to enjoy the book as well. It starts off good enough and I was excited for the plot to really get going, except it didn't. Not really. There were some ghostly things going on and then some piecing together of the story, while the male main character was infuriatingly logical about the whole thing because forbid a man to act emotionally even when faced with proof of the supernatural. Also the whole lovestory grossed me out. Roderick calls Stella a child throughout the entire book, even after halfway when he suddenly decides he's in love with her, he keeps calling her child. I suppose it acts as an old-time endearment, but why keep using it after they find out Stella isn't as young as her grandfather wants her to appear. Stop calling the woman you love a child. The book started off great, seemed to lose the plot halfway through, and never really recovered. 

Game completed: Dragon Age The Veilguard

To say I was excited for this game is an understatement. Ten years I've waited for this game! In 2022 I replated DAO and DA2 and this year I replayed DAI as preparation for this game's release. 

As usual I refrained from watching anything but the initial showcase. I wanted to go in as blind as possible while still having a hum of what I could expect. So let's dive in. I'll put all the story stuff and spoilers at the end and warn beforehand. At the start it will just be gameplay, mechanics and technicals.

The game is so beautiful I hardly knew what to do with myself but stop and stare every few steps. 

I've heard a lot of good about the character creator, but I struggled a bit with it. Felt like no matter what I tried my Rook looked old and tired with sallow skin and a man jaw. But I figured it out eventually and ended up with a cute little redhead. 

However it happened more than once that I'd load up the game and the Rook the game loaded up was the character preset and not the one I had spent most of an hour creating. Most of the time I just had to reload the save again to get my Rook in, but sometimes I had to reload five or six different times, which sucked some of the joy out of me because even installed on a SSD the load times were sometimes stupid long. I checked the Steam discussions on this and found many people had the same problem with a character preset being loaded in place of their OC. One suggestion was to go to the mirror and your Rook would be saved or you could redo it. Nobody with the issue was keen on redoing their Rook every time they started up the game and at least one person even said that going to the mirror broke all their saves... So I stuck with reloading until the game loaded correctly. 

My playthrough took 66½ hours and I CTDd twice in that time. First time I got a warning saying something about my GPU. I knew it had been on the absolute verge of being too weak so I lowered the graphics from Ultra to High after this. Game was still insanely pretty so it didn't bother me. The second CTD happened without any popups or warnings or anything. Just boom straight to desktop. 

Another slight annoyance was how long it took the game to load up environments and every time I entered a new zone the game would stutter for a bit before everything was properly loaded. I figured it was my GPU again, but found that people with 4060s also experienced stuttering so maybe the game just isn't properly optimized. 

These few technical annoyances aside I had a really great time with the game. I played as rogue and I enjoyed the fact that Veilguard doesn't lock your rogue into either bow or daggers. You can use both, although you'll probably end up speccing in favour of one of them. I mainly used my daggers, but the bow was great when I didn't want to run across the entire battlefield or to reach things at a distance. I ended up using both quite often. 

Combat was fast and reactive as rogue. Blocks had to be perfectly timed and lots of dodging and fast reactions. I enjoyed that I didn't have to babysit my companions through combat anymore and regardless of class they could all help with healing and buffs. It made for a fun combat experience. I also enjoyed how they all encouraged each other and Rook when they made a cool move or got a kill. Such team spirit :3

The Veilguard is more in line with Origins and 2 when it comes to level design. You have a handful of zones you can go to and that you'll keep coming back to, but you gain access to more of each zone as the story progresses. Some parts will be blocked to you when you first get there, but as you do more quests you'll discover more things, more loot, more collectables (although there isn't much of that and all the collectables have a game mechanic purpose). Throughout the whole game I had such strong Origins and 2 vibes. 

The preparatory stages reminded me a lot about Mass Effect 3, where you spend time and resources to improve the strength of each faction. And you'll want to have them all at their best, in true Bioware fashion. 

Before I go into the story and spoilers I want to address the accusations of "too much woke" in this game. Aside from one character you have to really go look for it. It isn't thrown in your face. Yes, the character creator has options for upper surgery and bulge regardless of gender, but just because those options exist it doesn't force you to use them. Cyberpunk2077 had those same options. As for that one character, yes they talk about it because it's important to them. I saw a comparison with Dorian from DAI and they complained about how Dorian's entire character was just him being gay and how this was similar. But honestly, Dorian's quest, while political, is all about him healing from and overcoming trauma. His father tried to change him with blood magic ffs! That sort of thing will linger and become part of your character whether you want it to or not. When it comes to the character in Veilguard their entire story is about them finding themselves and understanding who they are, and honestly? Their whole arc is handled better than that god awful conversation with Krem in DAI. Let's not forget that Dragon Age has always been progressive with the LGBTQ stuff. Back when DAO was new it was progressive that they had gay and bi companions and relationships. DAI had an openly trans character. I'm not at all surprised by this development for the Veilguard, and I don't mind it. 

Now let's head into the story. 

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

The game picks up from where Inquistion left off, but it's been ten years. Varric and Harding have recruited Rook and chased after Solas all over Thedas. The very first part of the game is the same part shown in the very first showcase. It's a bombastic start to the game and it really got my excitement up for what was to come. 

The part where I had to choose between Treviso and Minrathous took me by surprise with how early in the game it happened. I saved Treviso and spent the rest of the game apologizing to Neve and trying everything in my power to make her like me again. I succeeded, but every time Neve brought up the situation in Minrathous in conversation I apologized, and kept apologizing ^^; 

Lucanis stole my heart from the start, but when I was on the outing with Emmrich to light candles for the dead he tugged at my heartstrings enough that I started flirting with him too. Way later when Emmrich dropped the bomb about him wanting to become a lich I suddenly found myself needing to choose between him and Lucanis. I couldn't vibe with my boyfriend being a lich so I declined and continued chasing after Lucanis instead. It was all for the best though. Emmrich and Strife make a really cute couple :3 After Lucanis gets with Rook and Emmrich is dating Strife, those two have the best banter. 

Taash is very young. She's immature and juvenile and she's still working on growing up, which is so clear from all the interactions with her mother and the other companions. She mellows out once she finds herself and it's amazing to see. At the start I thought Taash would be the one who annoyed me the most, but it ended up being Bellara. She's so bubbly and talks with such forced positivity all the time that she just comes across as incredibly fake to me. Yes, I completed her questline, but aside from the serious or sad moments she's always so... much. She's too much. 

With all the Warden and Blight stuff going on I had hoped to see some old characters make a return. I get why they didn't include the ones who could be left in the Fade in DAI, but there are a whole bunch of others. I'd love to see Nathaniel again for example, or since they included choices from DAI in starting the game they could've included whether Blackwall was made Warden and had him play a role if he was. Defeating the demon of Unending Despair in the Wetlands and then gifting it flowers once you complete the Wetlands questline was a really neat thing. Turn Despair into Hope by providing proof that life endures no matter what. 

I loved Treviso and Arlathan. Any excuse to go to either of those zones was fine with me. I could just stare at the scenery for ages. 

There was way too little romance :P

I loved seeing Dorian, Maevaris, Morrigan, and the Inquisitor again. I liked how the game referenced the books and the comics. Although Morrigan never mentions the Well she describes how she came to be Mythal. She references the events of her companion quest in DAO even. Great callback. Mythal is splintered to hell, poor girl. I hated remaking my Inquisitor in the character creator. No matter what I did she looked old and tired, and my last quizzy had really pale blonde hair and that option wasn't even available. At least I could give her Fade Breach green eyes. 

The reveal about Varric broke my heart, but it made me think back to every single instance with him only to realise the truth, like the first time watching The Sixth Sense.

The final fight against Ghilan'nain took me by surprise. Even with all the vibes from the ME2 suicide mission I didn't think anyone would actually die. Not with how prepared I was. Everything and everyone maxed out. Poor Neve went through so much. First she loses her home when the archdemon attacks Minrathous, then she gets taken by Elgar'nan and blighted. She's so strong. I love her. Next time I'll save Minrathous for you. 

As for the main story I love how it all ties together from the very start. I've seen some complaints that Veilguard retconned Solas' character and ruined established lore with him as the villain, but... they didn't. Even in DAO Fen'Harel is described in stories as the trickster god who fought a rebellion against the Evanuris. He's used as a boogeyman byt he Dalish to scare kids into doing their chores and being obedient. And that's pretty much the same thing throughout 2. However, in 2 Flemeth hints to being something much older. In DAI we find out that Solas is the Dread Wolf and he created the Veil to imprison the gods in the Fade and now he wants to bring down the Veil, which was an accident, and return the world to how it used to be in ancient times. That fits with the god leading a rebellion - imprisoning the gods. But when he tries in the very beginning of Veilguard he accidentally lets out two of the Evanuris - Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan, and as the story goes on we find out that Fen'Harel fought his rebellion over millennia but he could never win so imprisoning them was a last desperate measure. He still wants to bring down the Veil, which will destroy the world as we know it and he justifies it with "People always die! It's what they do!" and that when the survivors see the beauty of the old world they'll understand. He's still that villain. But Solas' villainry seems a bit less urgent when two other gods are attempting to enslave all the mortal races and cover the world in blight. So Solas becomes a temporary ally - the enemy of my enemy is my friend etc. He backstabs us at least once and ultimately the only one who can talk him down from destroying the world is... Mythal. The one he did everything for to begin with. It fits. It's poetic. I like it. 

As for the mind-blowing pieces:
• The original elves, the Evanuris, were spirits. They stole lyrium to make their bodies, which created a war with the Titans whose lifesblood is lyrium, which ultimately ended with the Titans losing everything, including their connection to the Fade and their ability to dream. Which is why the dwarves can't dream, can't use magic because magic comes from the Fade, are the only ones who can mine lyrium safely, and who can feel the stone in their guts and hear it sing. They came from the Titans.
• The blight that exists in the world is only a teeny-tiny piece of the real thing which is also imprisoned in the Fade. This is what Ghilan'nain and Eglar'nan wants to bring into the world. All of the blight. They brought more with them when they escaped and Ghilan'nain molds it into whatever she wishes, using it as a tool of creation. In DAO we can see on the in-game map how it blackens as the Blight spreads from Ostagar and north. The Inquisitor's letters describe how the blight loosened into the world has blackened most of Ferelden. We can see it ourselves in the Hossberg Wetlands. But the blight boils are new and the darkspawn are different, courtesy of Ghilan'nain. 
• Solas didn't want to take on corporeal form, but he did it for Mythal. When she joined the Evanuris he betrayed her, but when he found out about the Big Blight and how the Evanuris wanted to use it, he returned to Mythal to ask for her help. She confronted the Evanuris, and they killed her. He did everything for Mythal. He fought for Mythal, and in the end only Mythal could make him stop. 
• The tablet from the First Invasion of the Qunari mentions fleeing from the Devouring Storm, and there were spread mentions throughout the game of things beyond the sea and wanting to find out what it was, if other places suffered the same kind of things as Thedas. Blight? Elves? Evanuris? Could the Devouring Storm be Blight? Were the First Invasion not actually invading, but fleeing from the Blight? Are we getting more than Thedas in a future DA game?
• Harding brings up the Andrastian faith when you watch Solas' memories. That the Maker created the Golden City, but Solas' memories confirms it was the Evanuris, and Elgar'nan calls himself "the creator of this world" just before the final fight. Elgar'nan is the Maker :3 I can genuinely see how Solas awoke to find the world a frustrating and broken mess. Everyone got everything so wrong xD
• The Secret Ending which you get post-credits if you've found the three mysterious orbs in-game references all of the previous DA games ending with "We come". The Blight seems to be concious. Is it the Blight? Or more gods, like the old gods of Tevinter? Or... the magisters who blackened the Golden City? Corypheus was only one of them. Could I please get a callback to the Architect, pretty please?

Digging myself deeper into the Elder Scrolls hole

It's been pretty quiet over here for most of the year and it's mainly been due to the hole I've been digging since July 2023. 

Let me start from the beginning. Since early 2021 I've been part of the r/Skyrim discord server and since 2022 I've been a moderator there. The server has hosted lore tests since forever, and while the lore test has been reworked and remodeled several times over the years sicne the server's inception in 2016, the main purpose of the test in recent years has been to pass it to get a role which will show you as a knower of the lore. The Elder Scrolls lore.

Anyone who has poked beyond the game's story varnish of any Elder Scrolls game has glimpsed the expansive behind the scenes of the games. TES lore is huge.

In July 2023 I decided I wanted to learn so I started to study a bit, reading the books, taking notes, observing lore discussions on discord, listening to podcasts and watching (vetted) Youtubers. 

But that also meant I immersed myself completely into The Elder Scrolls. I finally got around to play The Elder Scrolls: Blades, I picked up The Elder Scrolls: Castles as soon as it dropped in Sweden in early February this year, I started a new character in The Elder Scrolls Online and replayed all the content from the beginning to the most recent chapter, and I started a new playthrough of Skyrim.

When I wasn't playing Elder Scrolls, I was watching or reading Elder Scrolls. 

In March of this year I attempted the lore test for the first time, and while I did pretty well I didn't pass. Thursday last week I attempted it again and this time I passed :D 

I still have lots to learn, but hopefully the obsessiveness will pass a bit now :P 

Great timing for all of this when it's Elder Scrolls' 30th anniversary and ESO's 10th anniversary :3

There'll be lots more TES coming xD